Al Roker Felt Like He 'Ruined Thanksgiving' Last Year with His Health Crisis When He 'Almost Died'

Al Roker is reflecting on the near-death experience he had last year as he approaches the holiday season.

In PEOPLE’s exclusive clip of Wednesday’s episode of Your Mama’s Kitchen, an Audible podcast hosted by journalist Michele Norris, theToday co-anchor opened up about being hospitalized last year and missing Thanksgiving because of it.

“It’s no secret that I had a severe medical issue, and to be completely honest, I almost died. I didn’t know it at the time,” the 69-year-old said, noting that his loved ones kept that information from him so he could focus on recovering.

“But I missed Thanksgiving, and almost missed Christmas,” Roker added. “And I forgot how important those touchstone moments are.”

Roker explained that while hospitalized, the first sign that his wife Deborah Roberts — a correspondent for ABC News — knew he was going to be okay was when he came out of a procedure, under anesthesia, and immediately started talking about a recipe he wanted to cook for Christmas.

“And she said, ‘Okay, I think he’s gonna make it,’” he recalled. 

Roker admitted that the thought of spending the holidays with his family again was one of the things that helped him pull through the health scare.

“I felt, in a sense, badly because I ruined Thanksgiving for the family and I was not going to let that happen for Christmas,” he said.

Norris then told Roker that he was being a little hard on himself, to which he responded, “I know…but it was important to me and gave me something to push for. And I made Christmas dinner.”

Roker’s hospitalization last year was due to blood clots in his leg and lungs. The TV personality later opened up about the health scare in January, revealing on the Today show that he underwent an intense 7-hour surgery to "correct a bunch of internal stuff."

Roker said he had no idea his condition was so serious when he first saw doctors in early November to address stomach pain. The situation quickly escalated into a frightening range of medical issues that left officials baffled at first, sending him to the hospital not once, but twice.

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"Look, I had two complicating things," Roker said on Today. "I had blood clots, which they think came up after I had COVID in September. And then I had this internal bleeding going on, I lost half my blood. They were trying to figure out where it was."

Roker was being treated at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Through surgery, his medical team discovered he had two bleeding ulcers. Doctors resectioned his colon, took out his gallbladder and operated on his duodenum, part of the small intestine.

"I went in for one operation, I got four free," joked Roker. "So I got that going for me."

Fortunately, his wife took the reins as the lead in Roker's care, working directly with doctors.

"Thank god for Deborah," he said at the time. "She basically shielded me from all of this. I'm a living example of ignorance is bliss. I was able to put all my energy into recuperating because I didn't know how bad this was. ... I thought I was doing good!"

"It's not lost on us that this is a major, major thing for Al to be here," Roberts added. "He is a living breathing miracle. And I'm not overstating it, I think."